King emerged as a national figure during the boycott, and the MIA’s tactics became a model for the many civil rights protests to follow. The order to desegregate the buses arrived the following month, and on 20 December 1956 King officially called for the end of the boycott. Gayle, putting an end to segregated seating on public buses. ![]() Supreme Court upheld a federal district court’s ruling in Browder v. ![]() King, Jr., held 19–22 March, ended with his conviction, but no one else was brought to trial. In February 1956 Montgomery officials indicted 89 boycott leaders, including King, for violating Alabama’s 1921 anti-boycott law. The MIA suffered a setback in the spring of 1956. MIA officers negotiated with Montgomery city leaders, coordinated legal challenges to the city’s bus segregation ordinance with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and supported the boycott financially by raising money through passing the plate at meetings and soliciting support from northern and southern civil rights organizations. Glasco was appointed King’s executive secretary. When fundraising allowed for a paid staff position, Reverend R. During the next year the association organized carpools and held weekly mass meetings with sermons and music to keep the African American community mobilized. Wilson, parliamentarian.įollowing the MIA’s initial meeting, the executive committee drafted the demands of the boycott and agreed that the campaign would continue until these demands were met: courteous treatment by bus operators first-come, first-served seating and employment of Negro bus drivers. Fields, recording secretary (later replaced by W. Jones, second vice president Erna Dungee, financial secretary U. Roy Bennett, first vice president (later replaced by Ralph D. The MIA’s earliest officers were: Martin Luther King, Jr., president L. The organization’s overall mission, however, extended beyond the boycott campaign to advance “the general status of Montgomery, to improve race relations, and to uplift the general tenor of the community” ( Papers 3:185). Zion AME Church on the afternoon of 5 December, Montgomery’s black leaders established the MIA to oversee the continuation and maintenance of the boycott and elected King, a young minister new to Montgomery, as its chairman. Ninety percent of the black community stayed off the buses on 5 December, prompting calls for boycott leaders to harness the momentum into a larger protest campaign. A planning meeting was held in King’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on 2 December. ![]() Nixon launched plans for a one-day boycott of Montgomery buses on 5 December. In his memoir, King concluded that as a result of the protest “the Negro citizen in Montgomery is respected in a way that he never was before” (King, 184).įollowing the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955 for failing to vacate her seat for a white passenger on a Montgomery city bus, Jo Ann Robinson of the Women’s Political Council and E. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., the MIA was instrumental in guiding the Montgomery bus boycott, a successful campaign that focused national attention on racial segregation in the South and catapulted King into the national spotlight. The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed on 5 December 1955 by black ministers and community leaders in Montgomery, Alabama.
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